Politics
Jacksonville City Council seeks ethics opinion after General Counsel hires in-law’s firm
Should the city of Jacksonville’s lawyer have hired his father-in-law’s firm?
That’s the controversy the City Council voted to resolve via soliciting an opinion from the Florida Ethics Commission. General Counsel Michael Fackler hired the Bedell Law Firm owned by his father-in-law Hank Coxe for “legal services directly rendered by his father-in-law for the Consolidated Government of the City of Jacksonville.”
Former General Counsel Jason Gabriel would be charged to solicit the opinion rather than a member of Fackler’s staff, via “a legal memorandum … prior to the Council taking final action on this legislation, providing the relevant facts and background and any legal analysis the City would request the Commission consider in providing a written advisory opinion.”
Asked what he would charge, Gabriel didn’t offer a verbal estimate.
Sponsor Mike Gay said Gabriel could “navigate this for us to get us where we need to be.”
“I’m not a lawyer. I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, but I’m not a lawyer,” the Northside Republican said.
Republican Terrance Freeman lauded the resolution as a “proactive move.”
Another Republican, Matt Carlucci, said the City Council had a habit of “throwing a wrench into (Fackler’s) works” and that they currently are “playing games” with the lawyer.
Democrat Jimmy Peluso wondered why a lawyer for the local ethics commission didn’t send the memo, instead of hiring an outside lawyer to do it.
Republican Ken Amaro pressed Gabriel on whether there were conflicts, such as pending litigation, and Gabriel said that wasn’t the case.
Republican Rory Diamond said the Council doesn’t “trust” Fackler and so they have to “work around” him to find out what is ethical. In this case, he noted the Donna Deegan administration used Coxe’s firm for defense amid questions of staffers about an illegal gun registry that was being kept in City Hall and the Yates Building.
President Kevin Carrico said the question was whether it was “right or wrong” for Fackler to make the hire, and said Gabriel lacked a conflict
The question of the legality of the hire may be predicated on state law, given that local ordinances don’t address it.
Florida Statutes 112.3135 defines a father-in-law as a “relative.” And it sets restrictions on a public official, such as a General Counsel, hiring a relative.
“A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, or advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a position in the agency in which the official is serving or over which the official exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official,” state law reads.
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Mills was a day-one Byron Donalds backer in the gubernatorial race.
A former House Speaker and current candidate for Governor is leading the charge for Republicans as scandal swirls around a Congressman.
Saying the “evidence is mounting” against Rep. Cory Mills, Paul Renner says other candidates for Governor should “stand up and be counted” and join him in the call for Mills to leave Congress.
Renner made the call earlier this week.
But on Friday, the Palm Coast Republican doubled down.
He spotlighted fresh reporting from Roger Sollenberger alleging that Mills’ company “appears to have illegally exported weapons while he serves in Congress, including to Ukraine,” that Mills failed to disclose conflicts of interest, “tried to fistfight other Republican members of Congress, and lied about his party stature to bully other GOP candidates out of primaries that an alleged romantic interest was running in,” and lied about his conversion to Islam.
The House Ethics Committee is already probing Mills, a New Smyrna Beach Republican, over allegations of profiting from federal defense contracts while in Congress. More recently, the Committee expanded its work to review allegations that he assaulted one ex-girlfriend and threatened to share intimate photos of another.
Other candidates have been more reticent in addressing the issue, including Rep. Byron Donalds.
“When any other members have been involved and stuff like this, my advice is the same,” said Donalds, a Naples Republican. “They need to actually spend a lot more time in the district and take stock of what’s going on at home, and make that decision with their voters.”
The response came less than a year after Mills, a New Smyrna Beach Republican, spoke at the launch of Donalds’ gubernatorial campaign.
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Staff writer Jacob Ogles contributed reporting.
The cold war between Florida’s Governor and his predecessor is nearly seven years old and tensions show no signs of thawing.
On Friday, Sen. Rick Scott weighed in on Florida Politics’ reporting on the Agency for Health Care Administration’s apparent repayment of $10 million of Medicaid money from a settlement last year, which allegedly had been diverted to the Hope Florida Foundation, summarily filtered through non-profits through political committees, and spent on political purposes.
“I appreciate the efforts by the Florida legislature to hold Hope Florida accountable. Millions in tax dollars for poor kids have no business funding political ads. If any money was misspent, then it should be paid back by the entities responsible, not the taxpayers,” Scott posted to X.
While AHCA Deputy Chief of Staff Mallory McManus says that is an “incorrect” interpretation, she did not respond to a follow-up question asking for further detail this week.
The $10 million under scrutiny was part of a $67 million settlement from state Medicaid contractor Centene, which DeSantis said was “a cherry on top” in the settlement, arguing it wasn’t truly from Medicaid money.
But in terms of the Scott-DeSantis contretemps, it’s the latest example of tensions that seemed to start even before DeSantis was sworn in when Scott left the inauguration of his successor, and which continue in the race to succeed DeSantis, with Scott enthusiastic about current front runner Byron Donalds.
Earlier this year, Scott criticized DeSantis’ call to repeal so-called vaccine mandates for school kids, saying parents could already opt out according to state law.
While running for re-election to the Senate in 2024, Scott critiqued the Heartbeat Protection Act, a law signed by DeSantis that banned abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy with some exceptions, saying the 15 week ban was “where the state’s at.”
In 2023 after Scott endorsed Donald Trump for President while DeSantis was still a candidate, DeSantis said it was an attempt to “short circuit” the voters.
That same year amid DeSantis’ conflict over parental rights legislation with The Walt Disney Co., Scott said it was important for Governors to “work with” major companies in their states.
The critiques went both ways.
When running for office, DeSantis distanced himself from Scott amid controversy about the Senator’s blind trust for his assets as Governor.
“I basically made decisions to serve in uniform, as a prosecutor, and in Congress to my financial detriment,” DeSantis said in October 2018. “I’m not entering (office) with a big trust fund or anything like that, so I’m not going to be entering office with those issues.”
In 2020, when the state’s creaky unemployment website couldn’t handle the surge of applicants for reemployment assistance as the pandemic shut down businesses, DeSantis likened it to a “jalopy in the Daytona 500” and Scott urged him to “quit blaming others” for the website his administration inherited.
The chill between the former and current Governors didn’t abate in time for 2022’s hurricane season, when Scott said DeSantis didn’t talk to him after the fearsome Hurricane Ian ravaged the state.
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